Customer Reviews

Endless Summer

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I don't know why I've decided to review this album, to be honest, other than the fact that I own it, and wasn't so much disappointed but want to make the point that it is not an album that needs or warrants the hype it has received in the elite underground crowds. Certainly, it is Fennesz's best album. Certainly it evokes worthy comparisons to Oval, Microstoria, and Vladislav Delay. There is nothing wrong with this album. Imagine Autechre expurgated of all its beats, and you might hear the plangent noises of Fennesz. Is it the godly apical laptop album? No. In some strange way, it is simply beautiful noise. You'll like it. If you've taken the time to search for Fennesz on Amazon, that means you know a little about what to expect. Many people will tell you he is a genius, this Fennesz. If he is, then he is a genius of a very particular sort. The kind that designs pleasant noise. Is that enough? Is that really so great? It makes for a good, occasional listen, but is it as close to the power of Boards of Canada? Is Fennesz a greater musical genius than Eye Yamatsuka? What I'm wondering is, is this powerbook music an example of the player piano, the man hovering over the keys simply following the program on the sheet?

I expect more. I expect to be baffled, frightened, sorrowed, and deeply moved. This is none of those things. It rests alongside the most domestic of Tortoise's experiments, a very delightful wallpaper for a gathering of your most elite, judgemental friends for a night of intelligence competitions.

Like most of the best electronic music today, this album is preoccupied with grit, graininess, distortion and the patina of age. What sets it apart is a peculiar warble and an aesthetic of fuzz that takes me back to the happy pink haze of My Bloody Valentine's Loveless. Actually this is more of an orangey whiskey at the beach party kind of haze but you get the idea. And like Loveless the cover art of this album matches the feel perfectly.

But it's not all beach parties-- there is a wide range of emotion here, from the poignant deathbed nostalgia of A Year In A Minute to the fuzztone bowling balls tossed into a Martin Denny lagoon exotica of Caecilia. The only track that grates is Before I Leave which gets a bit monotonous.

This one's a keeper IMHO. All I can tell you is I keep listening to it, picturing new images and hearing more cool stuff every time. (You will need good headphones to get the most out of it.)

It's funny and ironic how in this day of perfect reproduction and theoretical eternal digital preservation, so many electronic musicians associate emotional depth and nostalgia with a deliberate decay and "distressing" like pre-antiqued furniture. Makes me wonder how the future will react to it...

L

Endless Summer is a good example why you should never trust written music reviews. It has all the ingredients for an intelligent-sounding review e.g. acoustic guitar meets computers, noise meets kitch and some subtle references to whatever. After the wave of praise-reviews talking about the above someone was bound to look through it all and be smart and say 'well it has all the right ingredients but its not really that good' or just plain 'it sucks'. The reason for this review-war is of course that the real qualities of this album (and all music) are not academic but abstract emotional personal stuff which cant be put into words. Personally i cant explain why i love this album.

fennesz is definately different. not in the terms you might think, though. the first time i heard 'endless summer' i was kind of dissapointed that i had spent the money on what i 'thought' would be a great album. especially after all the great reviews. well, needless to say i now listen to this album all the time. i guess it's almost challenging to listen to, but at the same time so soothing and enjoyable. i'm fortunate enough to be able to listen to music at my desk and at certain times of the day i put my headphones on. this is definately one i choose for those occasions. it's not background music, but it's not in your face either.

if you are in to semi-experimental music, this may be your bag. if you're into arovane, bola, jan jelinek, etc.. this will be something that you'll enjoy. if you enjoy this try the others i've listed above.

as for why i gave it four stars instead of five. it's just not a super incredible album, but definately one for a collector of good music.

Endless Summer...alot of people are split on this record. probably because of all the hype that surrounded it's release. it's not an album of sheer genius; but it is a delightfuly well composed slab of pretty noise. taking it simply or what it is will enhance the listening experience. personally, i love this record. the beautiful moments softly explode with fireworks of tender beauty and i love hearing the distant fragmented strains of the acoustic guitar struggling to shake off the electronic pixels that it's creator has stickered all over it. the title track and the song "Caecilia" are perfect examples of this technique and are the prime standouts. the rest of the record is adequate enough to keep my interest; but it's those two tracks that i keep coming back to. i like this kind of electronic music much much better than Boards Of Canada, because Fennesz's approach is less novelty and more reflective and thoughtful. and "Endless Summer" is free of those horrible children's samples that BOC constantly uses. and as a plus, the packaging and graphic design is divine.

I'd still go with something a little later on when becoming acquainted with Fennesz and his unique splintered electronica. Providing compelling fragmented undertones was rarely ever a problem for the artist, but earlier albums tend to drag more in the obvious samplings at the expense of subtle manipulation and pure white noise, rarely combining as seamlessly as the grand closer.

Fennesz garnered so much acclaim so quickly for Endless Summer that the album quickly sold out before most folks could ever find a copy. You can see why: harnessing glitch and guitar with equal aplomb, Endless Summer, from title to warm processed drones inside, soundtracks your ideal Ibiza screensaver.

Meaning, if underwater somulent moods sound intriguing, the vast echoscape of
featured cut "Endless Summer" offers low-key, filtered guitar and fuzzy feedback in hazy harmony. "Caecilia" adds playful gurgles and some marimba-like touches to the formula. "A Year in a Minute" and "Got to Move On" focuses on hum that unfortunately crosses the nuance/repetitive threshold. Closer "Happy Audio," for all it's seven minute build, never truly blossoms to the spectacle it aches to be.

While consistent (a good thing) a lack of tuneful exploration leaves this album conceptually successful but with few musical peaks.

Wishful thinking in the face of irreversible decay, or raw-nerve exposure of the wires and circuits that were always beneath the romantic artifice of recorded popular music? Fennesz makes it easy on the ears, but not on the soul: his beautiful, skittery, irregular constellations within constellations of sound carry melody and longing as surely as the Beach Boys album this wasn't named after. It's difficult to decide if the evisceration of these tunes is a Deleuzian molecularization into flux-as-form, or a craftier Romantic device in deconstructionist's clothing. Maybe it's best simply to marvel that something so sharply digital in its immanent tactility changes emotional shades depending on the listeners vantage point or current place in life and the world. That an an album not even two years old has proven so contextually sensitive says something about the power of association, and the power of this music. Will this responsiveness to context and listener mood hold five, ten years from now? Perhaps the appeal of this sort of prickly digitalia will fade with time like so many of the sounds over the course of this album. Perhaps remembering its former appeal will add yet another layer of nostalgia. This music is too of its time, and brilliantly so, to speculate beyond the cochlear tickle of its more immediately grasped pleasures.

fennesz is able with this album to present something new for the genre mixing noise elements with delicate melody and tonality in way that in my opinion really shows a sophisticated aesthetic lacking in a lot other electronic composers right now. endless summer is much more listenable than his other work, delivering on earlier promising tracks on previous albums like hotel parallel while maintaining an independent beauty that seeps through the clipping and post-digital trend of abusing technology. my friend says he's a jerk though.

Fennesz is my new favorite music discovery. Whenever I go see a rock show and there is a guy up there with a guitar and a huge cabinet amp full of processors and gadgets, I get excited. Fennesz is that guy but with a laptop. Ambient music gets a good seeing to with an element of live instrumentation. Fennesz, along with Squarepusher (the nuttiest bass player ever), gives me hope for the future of my guitar.